Age?

[Hippie Rancher]

I know I'm not supposed to say but I'm curious what ya'll age is and when you start in with cattle. What is ya'll story?? Story time go!!! Name, area, age, cattle breed, did you stick with that or switch, what have you learned along the way, things to know good, and bad, funny stories of farm/ranch life about the years, pooping stories while farm ranching haha, and anything else ya'll may want add.... these are the stories of cattle life member memories.... maybe I'll write a book after.... bahahahaha for all my cattle friends.

name is an unusual one
S E AZ
age is between 20 and 80
started with a Hereford heifer calf given by Grampa when I was born, he was a Hereford man from way back.
raised in the city, came back to the ranch in 1986 to care for him. during that time a cousin was helping with the cattle and brought in some other bulls - brahma, limousin, saler, even a shorthorn for a while. we also bought a few longhorns kind of as a joke. we took over all the management after Grampa died. more recently the bulls have been black or red angus/brangus and we have one hereford. the cows are starting to be more uniform reds and blacks. I kind of miss the colors but you sure get docked for it around here, no matter the actual conformation.

biggest thing I have learned is to watch the cows and go slow. if you don't need a lot of expensive toys you can make do on a small operation. we run 150- 200 mother cows depending on feed. being in the west the ranch is only about 20% private, the majority State Trust and a tiny bit of BLM.

poop is life, we don't poison flies or dung beetles, but we are in a dry climate and flies aren't actually that bad of a problem - most of the time anyway.

 

[James McAdams]

Tell more about the truck patch please.

We grew all kinds of vegetable for home, sell and give away. Seems like most popular were sweet potatoes, water melon, cantaloupes but other stuff as well. In addition to a dedicated couple of acres, anywhere in a cotton field or corn field that the short rows left a little opening, daddy and/or momma would have us out there planting some in it.

 

[faster horses]

The first cattle we owned was 5 yearling Hereford heifers. They cost $150 each, so we borrowed $750 from the bank, on our family's good name, I guess. Why else would a bank loan anything to someone with nothing?? Anyway, it was a big deal to us then. Mr. FH laid awake at night worrying about how we would pay for them. The guy we worked for was very good to us, he provided a place to live; we could run those 5 heifers, a milk cow and chickens and our horses and he provided the feed (hay, pasture and grain). So we milked a cow and sold milk, eggs and cream. I had a regular milk and egg route. That really helped. We left a job where we were paid $200/month in summer and $150 in winter. Winter was 9 months and summer was 3 months. At next the place, where we could run our 5 heifers and milk cow, horses and chickens, we were paid $225/mo. I'll never forget that a check for the month was $216.83 after social security was taken out. Then in 1965, that same guy helped us get the lease on that place and we got to buy some cows and machinery with a FmHA loan. After a couple of years, we were able to add more cows. It was a place with the best water right, even better than town so we put up a lot of hay. We didn't have the best equipment, so was broke down a lot. Finally, we were able to buy a new swather. In 1970 it cost $7000 for brand new International 12' 275 self-propelled swather!! It could really cut hay!! Of course, small squares were all that was used at that time. We hired kids for the summer to stack the hay with a Farmhand with an 'H' International tractor. Mr. FH taught the kids how to stack hay and we had some good stacks, LOTS of good haystacks. We had about 500 head of deer that would come into the meadow in the evening. Mr. FH guided out-of-state hunters for many years on that place, neighboring places and up in the mountains. He saved the deer coming onto the meadows for older people or veterans. He took the hunters out into the hills to hunt. I remember we charged $100 for a 3-day hunt (deer and antelope) and provided food and lodging. So many of those hunters became friends and they would send us lots of things at Christmas time as they knew we were a young family without much. It was a great time in our life. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. We were there 10 years, until the ranch sold. Then we went on to Chapter 2.

 

[puzzled in oregon]

The first cattle we owned was 5 yearling Hereford heifers. They cost $150 each, so we borrowed $750 from the bank, on our family's good name, I guess. Why else would a bank loan anything to someone with nothing?? Anyway, it was a big deal to us then. Mr. FH laid awake at night worrying about how we would pay for them. The guy we worked for was very good to us, he provided a place to live; we could run those 5 heifers, a milk cow and chickens and our horses and he provided the feed (hay, pasture and grain). So we milked a cow and sold milk, eggs and cream. I had a regular milk and egg route. That really helped. We left a job where we were paid $200/month in summer and $150 in winter. Winter was 9 months and summer was 3 months. At next the place, where we could run our 5 heifers and milk cow, horses and chickens, we were paid $225/mo. I'll never forget that a check for the month was $216.83 after social security was taken out. Then in 1965, that same guy helped us get the lease on that place and we got to buy some cows and machinery with a FmHA loan. After a couple of years, we were able to add more cows. It was a place with the best water right, even better than town so we put up a lot of hay. We didn't have the best equipment, so was broke down a lot. Finally, we were able to buy a new swather. In 1970 it cost $7000 for brand new International 12' 275 self-propelled swather!! It could really cut hay!! Of course, small squares were all that was used at that time. We hired kids for the summer to stack the hay with a Farmhand with an 'H' International tractor. Mr. FH taught the kids how to stack hay and we had some good stacks, LOTS of good haystacks. We had about 500 head of deer that would come into the meadow in the evening. Mr. FH guided out-of-state hunters for many years on that place, neighboring places and up in the mountains. He saved the deer coming onto the meadows for older people or veterans. He took the hunters out into the hills to hunt. I remember we charged $100 for a 3-day hunt (deer and antelope) and provided food and lodging. So many of those hunters became friends and they would send us lots of things at Christmas time as they knew we were a young family without much. It was a great time in our life. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. We were there 10 years, until the ranch sold. Then we went on to Chapter 2.

The first time I ever applied for a loan, and the loan officer(?) asked what I had for collateral, I think all I may have owned was a pickup. I told her that, looked her in the eye and said you can't use my dogs for collateral. She looked me in the eye with a bit of a smile and didn't say any more about collateral. And gave me the loan